No

Depends, do I get anything in return?

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Member

I am all for a rolling donation.
As others have mentioned I would put the minimum to £1.00 and leave the maximum up to the member himself.
Some kind of recognition would be great, a badge seems good enough for me and I would not really look at restricting anything for members who do not pay...But if it had to be done as an incentive the I would try to make it so that only subscribers can access special offers from sponsors and encourage sponsor to have more of those...maybe subscribers would receive a mail shot with all current offers kind of thing...some sort of added value that does not affect the forum itself...

And I think UKAPS branded merchandising would be a good way to raise money...I would go for the T-shirt as mentioned earlier in this thread, but stickers and key rings etc. would probably go too...

Member

Hi folks. The mods/founders have been discussing forum donations lately, and after some thought we would like to put forward an idea and gauge opinion.

We are thinking about creating a subscription based donation. UKAPS members would be able to opt to donate to UKAPS on a regular basis via a Paypal subscription. We thought that perhaps people would like to contribute a small amount on a regular basis.

Initial thinking is that there would be 3 subscriptions. £1 a month, £3 a month and £5. Fairly small amounts. Once subscribed, a subscription would roll along until you chose to cancel it, or after a period of time (perhaps 6 or 12 months) you would receive an email to remind you that you're subscribed. The subscription could be cancelled at any time, with no obligation or minimum time period.

Why would you subscribe? Well, put simply, UKAPS costs money to run and maintain. Much like a high light, high CO2 setup there are running costs involved. Sponsorship does contribute greatly to covering these costs but as a society it would be great to be able to cover more of the costs using contributions by members which, sadly, is not the case at the moment.

Let's also not forget that in order to get UKAPS into the various shows that we have been to in the past there are large costs involved in the logistics of getting mature aquascapes and people/equipment to these venues, let alone printing costs for leaflets and stall back drops etc.

A subscriber would get a badge of honor on their forum username which would be displayed on their posts. This would be a small token of appreciation, and a statement that you are a subscriber and willing to donate to the society. Something like this, with a coloured leaf representing your subscription:

This is still very much an idea and we would like to know what you think. Would you consider a minimal monthly subscription? What are your thoughts?